


Closure

by galaxyfrog



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, But its messy and huge and overwhelming, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Charles is trying his best, Dw about me im just projecting on a video game character, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Horses as metaphors for people yet again bc its meeee, Is v hard to deal with, M/M, Trauma, im fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyfrog/pseuds/galaxyfrog
Summary: Charles needs to see him to know for sure. He just needs to see.





	Closure

Charles followed the chaotic, bloody tracks from Beaver Hollow, through the woods, and towards the mountain. He knew what he would find. Still, the urge to see it sat like a stone in his belly, unmoving. He was ashamed of it, but it was that urge, more than the desire to put him to rest, that drove him forward.

He found Buell at the base of the mountain. His body had sunk in on itself and his ice blue eyes had been pecked from his head. Taima shuffled on her feet, rumbling, frightened by the smell. Charles thought of his last moments, and how terrified he must have been. Taima snorted; Charles realised he was shaking, weeping silently. He looked away, hunching his shoulders, and drove Taima hard up the slope. 

Charles' breathing came quick as they approached the rocky overhang. The trail was not hard to follow. He kept his eyes down as he swung himself to the ground. He looked at the blood smeared on the rock, the scuff marks in the gravel, and fought the bile rising in his throat. He knelt there looking at the ground for a long time. He could see a patch of soft blue against the rock in his peripheral vision. Tears rolled steadily down his face.

Taima started to groan and blow through her nose. He could hear her hooves shifting in the gravel. He stood up. His chest felt tight. He turned towards him, and there he was.

His skin was like paper. His eyes were sunken, and his clothes were the same as they had always been. He had put his clothes on that morning and would never take them off. He was propped against the rock to face the valley. He had pulled himself there; Charles could see the lines he'd left in the dirt as he had. He was looking out over the trees and the rolling hills and the wide, painted sky. He was wearing his big blue coat, the one he was wearing when Charles had lent him Taima in Colter. He was there, watching the rising sun, wearing his woolly blue coat, and he was gone.

Grief, thick and filthy, rose in Charles' throat, and he moaned. He paced and made sounds like a wounded animal. His insides felt rotten. Eventually, he collapsed against the wall of the overhang, and curled in on himself. He sobbed like a piece of cloth being wrung out until it was twisted and stiff.

His grief curdled in him, becoming raging terror. His breath was a wild thing as he turned away from him, hauled himself onto Taima, and kicked her sides. She grunted in shock and they flew back down the path.

He pushed her again and again as they thundered down the mountain. The world slipped past him grey and mildewed. Taima grunted with every stride. She foamed at her bit and sweat matted her coat. Charles pushed her harder still. Suddenly she screamed, stumbling, throwing Charles over her head.

He pulled himself out of the thicket he'd landed in, scratched and dazed and winded. Stood for a moment with his hands on his knees, eyes squeezed shut as he fought again with the filth rising from his belly. His head swam.

Blinking through the fog in his vision, he stood up straight. Taima was a little way away, holding her front hoof off the ground. Her eyes were rolling in her head and her sides were heaving, and Charles could feel the fear pouring off her in waves. Her hoof was split; the sharp mountain stones and the tight turns at such speed had been too much. Charles had never treated her like that before. He wouldn't. He gasped; bent double and vomited into the dirt.

He stood up again, wiped his mouth and his eyes with his hand. Sinking to the ground at her feet, he tore the scarf from his neck and wrapped it around her hoof. Taima snorted and groaned, leaning away, but he held her fast as he tied it tight around the hoof. 

Taima healed well. Her hoof would never be as strong as it was before, but that was alright. Charles would never again make her work the way she used to. It took a while for her to trust him again; that was alright, too. Trust and loyalty had to be earned, not demanded.

A few days later, Charles went and got Arthur's little mustang from the stable in Annesburg. He'd been around there plenty just before it all ended, looking enough like a walking corpse to frighten the stable hands, so no-one questioned Charles taking her. She wasn't fine by any horse fancier's standards, with a broad, muleish head, a compact little body, and no elegant carriage as she moved, but she was hard as iron. Charles had never met a horse with a will and a spirit like hers. 

They went back up the mountain together, Charles on foot, the mustang pulling a travois that he had made. As the sun set, Charles unrolled a thick woollen blanket, and curled Arthur into it, then tied him to the travois. He didn't lead the mustang as they walked quietly down the twisting path; she knew where she was going. Her dark eyes were still and gentle. Her rusty red legs were sure. Charles put a hand on her neck and walked with her as tears flowed down his cheeks like rain.

**Author's Note:**

> This is intense and idk if it works outside of my own head?? But here we are


End file.
